TEXAS GOVERNOR ABBOTT CAVES-
ORDERS STATEWIDE BANS & CLOSURES
BY LUIS MIGUEL
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research
purposes:
Texas Governor Greg Abbott walked back his previous decentralized approach of letting localities determine their own coronavirus responses, announcing an executive order on Thursday prohibiting social gatherings of more than 10 people and closing a number of public-facing businesses.The Republican governor’s order bans eating and drinking at restaurants (although takeout is still allowed), closes gyms and schools, and prohibits visits to nursing homes except for critical care. The measures are currently scheduled to continue through April 3.“Working together, we must defeat COVID-19 with the only tool that we have available to us — we must strangle its expansion by reducing the ways that we are currently transmitting it,” said Abbott, accompanied by Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen. “We are doing this now, today, so that we can get back to business as usual more quickly.”At the news conference, Abbott clarified that his order is not a shelter-in-place order. “All critical infrastructure” remains open and Texans may freely go to places such as grocery stores and banks. Businesses are also allowed to keep their workplaces open but should use only “essential employees” and allow remote work where possible.At a town hall that followed the news conference, Abbot warned that restaurants caught in violation of the order could have their licenses to operate revoked, stating that “literally their life as an ongoing business is on the line.”On the departure from Texas’ traditional model of leaving it to cities and counties to choose how to address situations based on their particular local circumstances, Abbot said, “The traditional model that we have employed in the state of Texas for such a long time so effectively does not apply to an invisible disease that knows no geographic and no jurisdictional boundaries and threatens the lives of our fellow Americans across the entire country.”Abbot followed that approach for weeks even while other states imposed strict top-down government controls to contain the COVI-19 spread.“They know their communities better than anybody else does,” he previously said.But that model brought criticism from voices who urged the government to provide a uniform response policy for the entire state.“Instead of following the lead of other states and the guidelines recommended by the CDC, Governor Abbott continuously passed this health crisis off to local and county officials,” complained Manny Garcia, executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, said in a statement.Abbot maintained that his executive order brings Texas in line with direction from Washington.“I find it necessary that we as a state, in unison, are doing exactly what has been prescribed by the federal government,” he said.When asked if the policy applies to spring breakers on the beach at Port Aransas, the governor replied, “So any place where anybody would gather, by this executive order they are prohibited from having more than 10 people gather at any one time and location.”He asserted that the state has ample power to enforce the order but will refrain from a full-on quarantine if Texans will abide by the mandated behavior of their own accord. If not, he warned, the government may enact tougher enforcement measures:The state now has the quarantine authority but we are not going to exercise that authority right now because we are going to depend on the responsibility that all Texans will show. If Texans are irresponsible in their behavior, though, there are more tools that we can use and we can be more aggressive, only if we need to be.Abbott also announced that State Health Commissioner John Hellerstedt declared a public health disaster earlier on Thursday. The last time such a declaration was made was in 1901, when a quarantine was issued to contain small pox.The disaster designation allows for greater government controls, but does not entitle the state to additional resources and test kits from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Abbott said that Texas has billions of dollars in its rainy-day fund that it can “tap into at the appropriate time, but the appropriate time will be when we know the full extent of the challenge that we're dealing with.”Texas currently has over 140 cases and five deaths related to coronavirus, putting it far behind hard-hit states such as Washington, which has reported 904 cases and 55 deaths. New York has had nearly 1,400 cases with 10 deaths, while California, the largest state in the union in terms of population, counts over 550 cases with seven deaths.
